The Trustees of Reservations goes GoPro

East Beach on Chappaquiddick as seen from the GoPro. — Photo courtesy of TTOR

The Trustees of Reservations (TTOR)recently hooked up a GoPro camera to a kite and began taking photographs at Wasque Point on the southeast corner of Chappaquiddick, where coastal erosion is constantly changing the face of the beach.

In April 2007, a storm ripped a hole in the barrier beach at Norton Point, which is managed by TTOR and owned by Dukes County, separating Chappaquiddick from the rest of Martha’s Vineyard and initiating a natural cycle of erosion.

In an effort to monitor the ever-shifting sands around Wasque, TTOR educators Molly Peach and Savannah Lawson came up with a simple, affordable, and ingenious plan to monitor the breach and provide photos and information that can be used by the public, scientists, or TTOR to understand this dynamic sand cycle, according to a press release.

A glimpse of Norton Point Beach on Chappaquiddick, via The Trustees’s GoPro.

With a piece of wood, a little rope, and some hardware, Savannah and Molly constructed a rig that a GoPro (tiny action-sport camera) can be strapped to, then attached to a kite and flown hundreds of feet above the sand. Once turned on, the GoPro can be set to take a photo every several seconds so the total time it takes to set up the GoPro, get it flying, and take it back down is only about 30 minutes.

So far they have flown the rig six times, but are still working out some of the technical details of the contraption. But they have still managed to capture images on Norton Point Beach, and East Beach on Chappy.